People That Look Like Their Pets

Artist: Frontyards
Album: People That Look Like Their Pets
Genre: Lo-Fi, Indie Rock, Garage Rock
City: Cheltenham PA
RIFYL: Pixies, Wavves, The Strokes

Frontyards are a quintet composed of Will McGoran, Donato, Max, and Giancarlo Pignetti, and Frank Mostoller. Each one of them plays multiple instruments on the album, as well as sing, so honestly you can tell there's a lot of talent in the band already.

People That Look Like Their Pets is the debut full LP by Frontyards, whom hail from the suburban area of Abington County, PA, and reside in Cheltenham High School. It's pretty impressive that a couple of high schoolers from close to home could release a full LP, and amass such a huge following out here in the city, and for that I also give them a ton of props. They put on a good live show, and are tons of fun to listen to at a show.

The album however, really isn't my thing. It's well produced, and it sounds amazing. Each member is obviously talented, and can play their instruments very well. The vocals are okay, but are a bit underwhelming, and honestly come off a bit generic and kind of feel like every other band in the scene at the moment. I get what Frontyards is trying to pull off on this LP, and they're all a bunch of really talented, good kids, but some of the lyrics come off a bit pretentious (the lyrics for New York, for instance), and some instrumental choices are just a little unnerving, like they synth bass in Undone. However, the parts of the album I did like were the classic rock n' roll influenced tracks that happened to appear here and there throughout the album, like When You're Gone and You're The One I Love, especially the doo-wop parts. People That Look Like Their Pets is probably the most interesting track on the album, as it's this random funk song that totally comes out of nowhere, and it's got this awesome horn part. The sad part is that it's only a minute long, and is the only different sounding track in the spacey, lo-fi aura of the album.

Otherwise though, I feel like this is a very underwhelming LP, and has a few too many cliches of the Philadelphia lo-fi scene. I think that it's awesome that these guys are out playing, and making amazing music at such a young age, and I probably could never have written anything this interesting back then, but I think that it's kind of bland. The guitar sounds great, the drums and bass are mixed well, but the vocals are very drone-y and reverb-y, and kind of just all mesh together on each song. The ideas are definitely here on the LP, but I think the band's sound still needs some work. If you're into spacey, lo-fi indie rock, with a classic rock sound, then I totally recommend the album for you. However, if I could suggest one thing to the band, it would be to stop drowning the vocals in reverb, and maybe have some faster songs to displace the slow songs. A change in tempo and pace is always nice, and helps keep the listener interested!

Anyway, I give the band's first full LP a 6/10, not because I think the album is terrible, because it's a very good album, but rather because garage-rock/lo-fi stuff is not really my thing.

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/thebasementboysmusic?fref=ts
Bandcamp:
https://frontyards.bandcamp.com/releases